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Thursday, February 18, 2010

How to Kill and Be Killed 101: Teach the Gospel, Save the World!

"The fact of sin in Christ's scheme of redemption is fundamental and must be kept to the front. Men must not be allowed to forget the fact that they are sinners and that the wages of sin is death. This is a doctrine that men don't like to hear about. They know that they are sinners, but they try to forget it. This is why often they plunge into all kinds of frivolities in order to get away from the serious thought of sin and its fatal consequences. This is why, unfortunately, in order to comply with or not to offend that kind of sentiment, many pulpits have little or nothing to say about sin.

One thing we may be sure of: as this aspect of man's condition drops out of our preaching, things will steadily grow worse, and men will become more and more set in their evil ways. For if there is no such thing as sin, or no evil consequences to follow, then there is no reason why we shouldn't open all the floodgates of passions and evil inclinations and desires and let things go at full speed, no reason why we should not adopt as our philosophy of life the motto, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.' It is to save men from that stupid, foolish delusion that Christ makes imperative in His plan of rescue the necessity of stressing, and stressing with ever-increasing emphasis, the fact of sin as man's most serious problem...

And here we are directed not only to teach but what we are to teach...

In this campaign for saving a lost world, for bettering conditions, the contents of this Book [the bible] must be carefully studied and taught, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, in season and out of season. Thus we should understand and see that careful provision is made, under compotent teachers, for the study of the Word of God...and yet how often we find men in our pulpits searching heaven and earth for something new to preach about, while this treasure-house of wisdom and knowledge, of things necessary to salvation, is neglected, passed by, and overlooked...They have preached on almost everything except Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God whose blood alone cleanses from sin. The thought of sin, from which we need to be saved, has largely dropped out of most of our preaching...

People attend the churches, but rarely are their consciences pricked. They attend the churches but hear little about their sins and shortcomings. They attend the churches, but their self-complacency is never disturbed by what they hear, or at least rarely. They hear and go away feeling no sense of lack on their part and no wish or desire to live more worthily than they are living. Divine unrest rarely stirs within them; no welling up of great and ennobling desires is awakened within them. The people listen and go away to gossip, to tattle, to keep on in their evil ways...

The question is often asked, what is to be the future of Christianity as it comes into competition with other religions and with Communism, Nationalism, Capitalism, and all antagonistic forces? To my mind there is absolutely no need to worry about that matter...The only thing that we need to be concerned about is to see that we carry out faithfully the instructions of our Lord; that we be true to the solemn trust committed to us; that we go on teaching His word, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, in season and out of season, and give ourselves no concern about its future. Its future is assured. God is behind it. It cannot fail.

Let us stop worrying about the future of Christianity and get down to the hard work in carrying out the instructions of our Lord."